Welcome to nzresearch.org.nz

Discover and access New Zealand’s most comprehensive selection of research papers and related resources. This site include peer-reviewed and other research from universities, polytechnics, and research organisations throughout New Zealand.If you are an organisation that produces research material in New Zealand and would like to contribute to this service please get in touch.

Browse by thesis type:

The Schools and Faculties of Auckland University of Technology, as well as the dedicated Research Institutes and Centres, provide the framework for research in business and industry, the arts and humanities, health and environmental sciences and design and creative technologies.

Featured research:

This thesis was born from my personal experiences and encounters with irate international tourists who visited the Taj Mahal and swore never to come back. Despite being advertised as one of the must-see locations in India, these days the Taj Mahal, a monument of love, is proving to be a disappointment to tourists from all over the world. Therefore, I decided to focus on understanding the nature...

Featured research:

Vineyards in New Zealand suffer bird damage caused by several avian species, including blackbirds and silvereyes. The introduced European Blackbird takes whole grapes which reduces yield. The self-introduced Australasian Silvereye pecks on grapes, leaving them on the vine to be further attacked by fungi and bacteria, and the subsequent off-odours can cause grapes to be refused by the winery or to suffer a...

Massey is a national university with a multi-campus character, and is New Zealand's pre-eminent distance education university. Its academic specialisations include: agriculture, veterinary and the life sciences; land, water and environmental studies; industrial innovation through engineering; design and the creative arts; business; Maori development; the social sciences; education; and nursing and public health.

The University of Auckland aspires to become a major international university, providing a learning environment of the highest quality, leading the advancement of knowledge creation, intellectual discovery, and innovation, and taking its place with world-class universities on the global stage. The Strategic Plan of the University emphasizes the importance of maintaining the quality and resourcing of teaching and research at levels which achieve high standing for the institution in the national and international communities.

Featured research:

The education sector in New Zealand has undergone an immense reform since 1987. Much of this has been underpinned by neo-liberal notions about government intervention as counter to freedom of choice. I argue that while the reforms purport to be liberating through a restoral of rights and a provision of choices, they instead lead us to constitute ourselves as "governable" rather than as free individuals. Using the work of French...

The University of Canterbury (UC) has an impressive international profile in research, learning and advanced scholarship in the sciences, engineering, arts, education, law and business. Christchurch is the "hi-tech" centre of New Zealand, and is supported by UC's strengths in engineering, sciences and information technology, and by the fact that UC is home to the New Zealand ICT Innovation Institute (NZi3), the Human Interface Technology Laboratory of New Zealand (Hit Lab NZ), and the most powerful scientific research computer in New Zealand, "BlueFern". Other leading research centres include The Macmillan Brown Centre for Pacific Studies, The National Centre for Research on Europe and Gateway Antarctica.

Featured research:

As the demand for safe and clean electricity increases, the New Zealand wind energy industry seems poised to expand. Many generating companies have projects in the planning stage and there are likely to be many more potential sites yet to be identified. Reliable wind climate predictions over a wide area and for different heights above grounds are often vital to determine the viability of wind farm projects. This study investigates the use of meteorological mesoscale models to determine the wind and energy resource, particularly in areas of complex terrain...

Research is the lifeblood of any great university and, as New Zealand's oldest university, the University of Otago has a long established tradition of research excellence. Since its foundation in 1869, Otago’s expertise has grown across diverse fields of academic endeavour and it is now New Zealand's top-ranked university for research. Search the Otago University Research Archive for the University of Otago's published and unpublished quality research outputs or target Te Tumu ePrints directly, for publications by academic staff and students in this School.

Featured research:

The aim of this thesis is to improve our understanding of the causes of organisational crisis. As crisis genesis research is still in its infancy, the main objective is to develop a theoretical framework that is well-grounded in data of crisis-causal processes. The first part of the literature review examines the need for crisis-causal research and comes to the following conclusions: Crises are significant phenomena for organisations. During crises, a company's survival is threatened ...

The University of Waikato strives to be a key player in driving innovation through its strong focus on student and staff research. It brings international excellence to its region through world-class academics who provide research-led teaching in a broad range of disciplines including Management, Chemistry, Biology, Ecology, Communications, Computer and Information Science, Education, Arts and Mathematics.

Featured research:

The suggestion that all people are cultural and live in cultural worlds acts to challenge members of culturally dominant groups as they tend to see their way of life as normal rather than cultural. Dominant group members usually talk about themselves in relation to their national identity (New Zealander, Australian, or American) rather than name being part of a cultural group within their nation state...

The strength of Victoria University's research-led culture is evident in the national and international standing of its researchers, with particular strengths in bioscience, geology, environment, geography, material science, logic, computation, architecture, design, business, law, music, literature, history, language, policy, governance and social science.

Featured research:

Mental health nurses are frequently called upon to care and provide intervention for suicidal men. While there is substantial literature on male suicide, far less is known about the understandings men have of their suicidal experiences. This study draws upon Gadamer's philosophical hermeneutics to explore the understandings that four men have had of their past suicidal experiences ...

For over 100 years CPIT has enjoyed an outstanding reputation for well-structured and flexible programmes that respond to employer and student needs. One of the South Island’s largest tertiary institutes, it places an emphasis on the practical applicability of its courses, which reflects the community-orientated philosophy behind CPIT.

Featured research:

Health benefits associated with being active are well recognised and yet for many, particularly women at midlife, how this activity is maintained is both complex and poorly understood. This paper describes a qualitative feminist study in which 10 midlife women participated in two semi-structured interviews to explore factors influencing their ability to maintain physical activity over time ...

Research is an important and integral part of the academic work of The Open Polytechnic. Emphasis is given to applied research which supports our degree programmes or which relates to open and distance learning.

Featured research:

This article highlights and explores central features of the media representation of the changing Chinese economy in the 21st century and posits a hypothesis of inference concerning the interaction between mediated commentaries of international economies within the context of globalisation. These inferences are threefold: firstly, contrary to expectation, the visibility of nations within the Western network ...

Whitireia New Zealand is committed to supporting and encouraging staff and student research. Focal areas for research at Whitireia are kaupapa Māori research, applied research in the Faculty of Business & Information Technology and the ongoing development of internationally recognised creative research achievements from the Faculty of Arts and Te Wānanga Māori.

Featured research:

This paper discusses the process undertaken to guide and support third year Diploma of Teaching (ECE) students through small research projects carried out during a practicum placement. From setting and defining their own topics, ethical considerations and data collection and analysis, students develop a sound understanding of research skills and processes...

Unitec Research Bank, our digital repository service that enables the deposit, storage and discovery of research produced by Unitec students and staff. It is intended to facilitate scholarly communication and shared access to our research outputs.

Featured research:

Principals in New Zealand Primary Schools are aware of an increased emphasis on their role as educational leaders. The expectation is that they are leaders of learning, whilst also meeting the requirements of the day-to-day operational running of the school. This creates challenges for principals that were worthy of investigation. The research examined what is expected of primary principals as leaders of learning and who sets these expectations. This research also investigated why principals are challenged with the expectation that they lead learning...